FEATURED ARTICLES ABOUT RAW SEWAGE - PAGE 3

A Lehigh County judge has ordered an Upper Saucon Township couple to stop dumping raw sewage into a culvert that eventually leads to Saucon Creek. The couple, Carmine and Mary K. Litz of 4068 Old Bethlehem Pike, used "an unauthorized and intricate raw sewage disposal system" to pump waste, including feces, from their home to the culvert, the township says in court papers. A preliminary injunction issued Tuesday by President Judge John E. Backenstoe bars the Litzes from disposing of waste matter from their property unless they have the proper sewage permits.

The Lehighton Area Citizens For Affordable Schools last night once again disputed the answer they received from the Lehighton Area School Board about the possibility that tainted water was being pumped onto the lawn of the Mahoning Valley Elementary School. Citizens' President Gisele Mathias, speaking at the regular board meeting in Shull-David Elementary School in Lehighton, said she talked with Walter Pilger of the Department of Environmental Resources at Pottsville, who suggested any sample the group has from Mahoning school should be taken to Hess Environmental Laboratories in Stroudsburg.

Eldred Township's solicitor told supervisors last night that he will file a criminal complaint today against the owner of the American Hotel, which officials say has been leaking raw sewage into the Buckwha Creek for at least five months. Local officials have been doing tests to determine that the sewage was, in fact, coming from the hotel septic system since employees of the Kunkletown Post Office, housed on the hotel's first floor, complained in March about foul odors and raw sewage that repeatedly floods their offices.

The Bethlehem Democratic Club celebrated its 100th anniversary in April and club Chairman Mike Vreeland can't remember the last time the seven-day-a-week private club was closed. That is, not until Friday when the Bethlehem Health Bureau shut it down after workers trying to fix a plumbing problem unleashed a giant nest of fruit flies from beneath the club. According to Vreeland, club officers had several times called a plumber to clears clogs in the basement, but when the problems persisted last week, they decided to tear up the cement floor.

Lower Saucon Township has asked Northampton County Court to issue an injunction against the operators of a township restaurant that is allegedly in violation of various township ordinances and permits. Attorney Thomas Maloney filed a petition on behalf of the township against Gus and Eleni Zannakis, the owners of Gus's Crossroads Inn. Northampton County Judge William F. Mora set July 15 as the date for a hearing on the petition. The township's complaint says the restaurant's on-site septic system is malfunctioning and raw sewage spills onto adjoining property.

A Northampton couple on Wednesday filed a lawsuit in Northampton County Court alleging the borough and sewer authority allowed raw sewage to back up into their home and cause about $13,000 in damage. William E. and Liane C. Domitrovitsch of 1118 Lincoln Ave. claim Northampton and the Northampton Borough Municipal Authority failed to inspect and maintain the sewer line. Because of their negligence, the Domitrovitsches allege, an obstruction in the sewer line was not detected, and it caused raw sewage to flood their home Sept.

A day after Allentown workers received a call about raw sewage making its way into Trout Creek, they found the source of the leak and repaired it Thursday afternoon, city officials said. Some raw sewage managed to leak into the creek, but the flow of water and a strong current overpowered the contamination of the sewage, said Dan Koplish, manager of Allentown's Water Resources Department. Fish seemed to be doing fine, Koplish said. The creek water is not suitable for drinking. "This is not a routine thing," Koplish said.

By Christopher Baxter, Patrick Lester and Jarrett Renshaw, OF THE MORNING CALL | July 24, 2010

In the ebb and flow of the treasured Little Lehigh Creek, Janet Keim sees flashes of history: the Delaware Indians who once drank from its shores, her own children who played by its banks and the weekend anglers who still wade in its channel to hook a brown trout. "It's the life of the Valley," she says, standing along the creek at Keck's Bridge in Salisbury Township, where the water bends north before meeting the Lehigh River in Allentown. But sniff the air and know this, she adds: The life and development the creek helped spawn now threaten its very existence.

Marie Wieder cringes when it rains on Wabash Street. She knows that with the rain comes the chore of bailing raw sewage out of her cellar. "We've been putting up with a health hazard. This is raw sewage. We have to bail it out by hand," she said while sitting in the living room of her Cape Cod style brick home that is tucked in the green and well-kept 300 block of Wabash Street. Loraine Talbot also shudders when she sees a cloudy sky. On July 7, Talbot broke her knee cap when she slipped on the raw sewage that blanketed her basement floor.

By Rick Loomis Special to The Morning Call - Freelance | January 28, 2009

The Lehigh County area has a problem. It's a gross problem. Simply put: we're running more water through our sewers than our sewers can handle. What happens when you run more water through a sewer than it can handle? It overflows. Where does it overflow? It overflows out of manholes into our rivers and streams. But rivers and streams can handle some sewage, right? Sure they can, but we also drink that water, fish in it and hang out on the stream banks. We're talking about raw sewage here.